Workplace sexism: TUC appoints a woman as General Secretary

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, her 'left-wing socialist' brand of Trade Union Reform was actually much tougher than the 'capitalist' Thatcher Government eventually introduced.

Her White Paper failed of course due entirely to paymasters' Jack Jones and Hughie Scanlon's union 'tanks' parked on her and PM Harold's 'lawns'.

Some of us remember only too well, S_A ...

If I remember rightly, it was one of the ideas the SDP considered adopting when it was set up.

[Lateralthinking1]

If I remember rightly, it was one of the ideas the SDP considered adopting when it was set up.

What was s_a? 'In Place of Strife'?

There is a problem when unions with highly paid workers are demanding more money, when rubbish is piling up in council tower blocks and the stench is rising to the sixth floor; and, to bring back what became something of a cliche, ordinary people are unable to bury the dead.

It is that they prevent other unions, and union members with reasonable demands, from having the strength to defend their comparatively poor conditions against Government attacks. Those people were the victims of the 'villain' unions as much as they were victims of political parties. That continues to the present day.

Parties feel that they are faced with two choices - (a) Do nothing or (b) Clamp down. They choose (b). Being non-selective on (b) is pretty impossible. The SDP failed to see what Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have failed to see since 1945. If you were to give more democratic power to people, the unions would adjust to reason more readily.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well I was in shorts but I can sum up my view on that matter in one sentence. Had post war Governments given far greater decision making power to citizens by 1969, the unions would not have become so focussed on pay and overly powerful in that regard.

I remember the latter years of Castle. A quick scan of her biography reveals a woman not without double standards. It also shows that she was passionate in her support of pensions and the welfare state.

She is also described as fiery and of fierce intellect. It is the positives I recall.

And I think it is the attitudes I'm picking up on today. The current situation requires of a possible alternative Government (a) an awkward squad with passion and (b) in others integrity beyond reproach. That as a brand is a seller almost irrespective of policy.

We are being severely bludgeoned by people who may well have an extensive armoury. They also have the character of feathers.

On the other hand, remember that the fact that 60s consumer boom was being bought on HP, at the tail end of 20 + years of Keynsian demand-management policies, did not disguise the fact that the British economy was in a sharp state of decline in profitability. This was notwithstanding the bringing in of Commonwealth labour to take up low-paid jobs the indigenous population, post-WW2, were unprepared to take up, having moved up the social scale and into the 'burbs. The sheer numerical dimensions of the baby boomers coming of age at the start of the 1960s relative to total population lent its numbers a weight in terms of bargaining power that their elders, some still with memories of the Slump, were aghast at. Advertising had never been directed at them - but at those for whom their goods were manfuactured - that is, until the ruling class - who in their complacency still continued to believe the sun would never set on the Empire - saw the chance of making mass spending power part of the equation of economic success. The working class ingenuity that had fathered the generation Gap in the lean 1950s was ripe for co-option on behalf of firms making goods for the expanded market, targetted at the young, and purloining the creativity of the Mary Quants of that world. Later, Thatcher would spin the yarn that greed and "pricing themselves out of jobs" had been the working class's undoing; unaccountable management inefficiency was overlooked in the new philosophy of monetarism and "the boot now being on the other foot", and the discontent that had sought greater control over the trade union bosses presented as overprivileged trade union bosses (which they of course were) bullying workers into taking industrial action which had not been voted for.

We are now reaping the whirlwind of that period.

[Serial_Apologist]

What was s_a? 'In Place of Strife'?

There is a problem when unions with highly paid workers are demanding more money, when rubbish is piling up in council tower blocks and the stench is rising to the sixth floor; and, to bring back what became something of a cliche, ordinary people are unable to bury the dead.

It is that they prevent other unions, and union members with reasonable demands, from having the strength to defend their comparatively poor conditions against Government attacks. Those people were the victims of the 'villain' unions as much as they were victims of political parties. That continues to the present day.

Parties feel that they are faced with two choices - (a) Do nothing or (b) Clamp down. They choose (b). Being non-selective on (b) is pretty impossible. The SDP failed to see what Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have failed to see since 1945. If you were to give more democratic power to people, the unions would adjust to reason more readily.

"People" as you put it were bought off with the consumer lifestyle - a whole class was reduced to passivity. You can bet the right-wing trade union bosses didn't want the left to gain more influence and possible control: they - the right wing bureaucrats - happy and comfortable in their beer and sandwiches-type set up with the seats of power (boardrooms and Downing St) - would have identified their interests with the bosses, and clothed them in In Place of Strife rhetoric once push came to shove - because the dynamic pushed by the left - rank-and-file control over their organisations, as Wheen put it - was part and parcel of a bigger objective rhetorically preached by successive socialism-preaching Labour leaders, but never put into effect further than what the Attlee government achieved. The way I see things, socialism isn't handed down courtesy benevolent governments while the bosses look away; its a question of seizing control and mass involvement determining how much of what society needs to turn the productive apparatus to. I am assuming this is what you mean by more democratic power to people - except I see it not as granted, but as having to be taken; and the only time that power comes into effect is when our gains are under threat - our libraries, hospitals, rights to protest and defend jobs and living standards.

[Lateralthinking1]

On the other hand, remember that the fact that 60s consumer boom was being bought on HP, at the tail end of 20 + years of Keynsian demand-management policies, did not disguise the fact that the British economy was in a sharp state of decline in profitability. This was notwithstanding the bringing in of Commonwealth labour to take up low-paid jobs the indigenous population, post-WW2, were unprepared to take up, having moved up the social scale and into the 'burbs. The sheer numerical dimensions of the baby boomers coming of age at the start of the 1960s relative to total population lent its numbers a weight in terms of bargaining power that their elders, some still with memories of the Slump, were aghast at. Advertising had never been directed at them - but at those for whom their goods were manfuactured - that is, until the ruling class - who in their complacency still continued to believe the sun would never set on the Empire - saw the chance of making mass spending power part of the equation of economic success. The working class ingenuity that had fathered the generation Gap in the lean 1950s was ripe for co-option on behalf of firms making goods for the expanded market, targetted at the young, and purloining the creativity of the Mary Quants of that world. Later, Thatcher would spin the yarn that greed and "pricing themselves out of jobs" had been the working class's undoing; unaccountable management inefficiency was overlooked in the new philosophy of monetarism and "the boot now being on the other foot", and the discontent that had sought greater control over the trade union bosses presented as overprivileged trade union bosses (which they of course were) bullying workers into taking industrial action which had not been voted for.

We are now reaping the whirlwind of that period.

Your direct experience is greater than mine. I accept quite a bit of it - policy of heightening consumerism to distort natural demand patterns, larger numbers of the young with less connection to adverse history and more leverage, migration patterns, decline of economic profitability based on industry, elements of HP.

Then there is a lot of however. However:

- Look at West Germany (Ruhr) and Scandinavia and what was achieved there during the same period and for longer

- It took quite some time before consumerism really distorted natural demand - credit card first appeared in 1965, then took off moderately, I think, TVs, fridges, washing machines, hair dryers, bathrooms, inside toilets, foreign holidays, even cars and much more besides were all new to many people, they were purchasing firsts rather than buying in numbers

- There is no doubt that excessive wage demand led to the collapse of major parts of the British motor and motorcycle industries, some unions had no sense of brotherhood - or sisterhood - with other ordinary workers which they might have had if society had been structured so that decisions had involved everybody, the print unions were big takers, just as elsewhere, there was no trickle down in the union movement

- More young people, more old people, more new people, more people needing services, I haven't the intellect to devise an alternative way but it seems to me that everything about the advent of a welfare state, and nationalisation, suggested anything but a top down approach, rather that decisions would be taken not so much locally as at the community level but still operating upwards within the framework of state

[Lateralthinking1]

"People" as you put it were bought off with the consumer lifestyle - a whole class was reduced to passivity. You can bet the right-wing trade union bosses didn't want the left to gain more influence and possible control: they - the right wing bureaucrats - happy and comfortable in their beer and sandwiches-type set up with the seats of power (boardrooms and Downing St) - would have identified their interests with the bosses, and clothed them in In Place of Strife rhetoric once push came to shove - because the dynamic pushed by the left - rank-and-file control over their organisations, as Wheen put it - was part and parcel of a bigger objective rhetorically preached by successive socialism-preaching Labour leaders, but never put into effect further than what the Attlee government achieved. The way I see things, socialism isn't handed down courtesy benevolent governments while the bosses look away; its a question of seizing control and mass involvement determining how much of what society needs to turn the productive apparatus to. I am assuming this is what you mean by more democratic power to people - except I see it not as granted, but as having to be taken; and the only time that power comes into effect is when our gains are under threat - our libraries, hospitals, rights to protest and defend jobs and living standards.

Much as my last (probably) not very good response but I don't quite go along with:

socialism isn't handed down courtesy benevolent governments while the bosses look away; its a question of seizing control

I fully accept that is how things look today. But - I used to work my head around PR a lot. Post the AV debacle I think a lot more about the concept of political parties. I really can't see overwhelming barriers to parties with very different ideas being created and elected other than those the public place themselves. In fact, SNP shows that is the case.

So I think you could vote something like that into being rather than having to seize it. There are big obstacles but it isn't impossible with the will. I love a lot of socialism's historical components but I am not absolutely convinced that it even requires, or equates to, full red blooded socialism. I don't self-define as a socialist. I'm a socialist leaning social democrat with strong environmental values and something of a balance between social liberalism and old-style conservatism. It is rampant economic liberalism I hate. I think most people are politically an amalgam and many non-socialists would choose to have a far greater say.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hope you don't feel I'm browbeating you, Lat! - John Skelton is much more skilful at this sort of thing - but...

- Look at West Germany (Ruhr) and Scandinavia and what was achieved there during the same period and for longer

Outside the Iron Curtain countries, no land was more devastated post-WW2 than W Germany. One way John would explain capitalism as being able to regenerate itself is by destroying then rebuilding its productive base. In Britain the boss class (if you will) sat back metaphorically believing its privileged place for building the Empire unthreatened by foreign competition. Germany was rapidly re-buiilt, US-assisted (to stop it falling prey to "communism"), re-equipping factories with the latest most productive technology. Same went for Japan, giving these countries a head start. Expenditure on armed forces was ruled out, amounting to big savings countries insisting on staying at the top table had to account for. Britain could export capital - there was (initially) nowhere abroad for Germany; and they made sure that industrial relations would be modernised, trade union rights granted - limited, sure, but not concessionary like here - with placements on the boards - to ensure industrial peace.

- It took quite some time before consumerism really distorted natural demand - credit card first appeared in 1965, then took off moderately, I think, TVs, fridges, washing machines, hair dryers, bathrooms, inside toilets, foreign holidays, even cars and much more besides were all new to many people, they were purchasing firsts rather than buying in numbers

Cash in pocket was enough! I didn't even have a bank a/c until 1974, when the company insisted on direct wage payments - I'd never trusted banks!

- There is no doubt that excessive wage demand led to the collapse of major parts of the British motor and motorcycle industries, some unions had no sense of brotherhood - or sisterhood - with other ordinary workers which they might have had if society had been structured so that decisions had involved everybody, the print unions were big takers, just as elsewhere there was no trickle down in the union movement

Unlike in countries like Germany where a more corporatist philosophy was pursued, as described, British trade unionism had always been based on skills since the time of the gilds. We always tried to bring in the "big guns" on behalf of the unions with weaker bargaining power - remember Grunwick? - but calls for c onjoined thinking and joint action were always thwarted by the line taken by the separate unions that TUC policy had to come up from the ranks. Then the TUC argued it had no constitutional power to call unions out in support of the fledgelings - or this had been made illegal after the 1926 General Strike, or something... Fighting the old guard of the Communist Party... not physically, you understand, but that was something else again!!! The CP shot all the left in the foot by agreeing trade unionism to be restricted to wages and conditions, and having nothing to do with workers control - which, of course, had historically been wiped out under Stalin, and CPs were still in thrall to Russia, or by the 1970s a "humanised" but still basically bureaucratised model of society.

- More young people, more old people, more new people, more people needing services, I haven't the intellect to devise an alternative way but it seems to me that everything about the advent of a welfare state, and nationalisation, suggested anything but a top down approach, rather that decisions would be taken not so much locally as at the community level but still operating within the framework of state

No, sorry, Lat, Beveridge, the Abercrombie plans for rebuilding London etc, were top-down personnified - as were the nationalisations. There was a lovely programme that unarguably showed that. One day the miners turned up to work, and the signs outside said "British Coal" or somesuch. Wow, they thought, now this is ours! Which, formally speaking, of course, it was, but not in any meaningful sense of control. The old bosses were brought back in when they agreed to take management positions, and offered good salaries. Millions were to be spent on compensation to former owners to keep them happy.

[mangerton]

I thought that it as actually "You'll have had yer tea!" (pace the Dougal and Hamish characters in ISIHAC)...
Good luck this time!

"You'll have had your tea" is the traditional Edinburgh greeting to callers at one's house.

"Yer tea's oot!" is a rather more robust expression. If it had been translated by the great Stanley Baxter, it would read something like this:

"I do not altogether agree with what you are saying. Kindly step outside with me and we will continue the discussion along the rules outlined by the late Marquess of Queensberry."

And thank you, my watch is now once again going.

[Lateralthinking1]

Blimey serial_apologist. I must have my fish and chips soon.

1. So you do agree it could have been different here, irrespective of demographics? Brandt was very forward-looking. One of the best. We too had American assistance, of course. I feel that the period 1951-1957 looks industrially unimaginative and could have done with Government initiatives. There is a solid appearance c.1960 but nothing much for the future - housing, some yes, but no structural reform that might have accompanied more industrial effort - and then in the mid-1960s there is some wonderful innovation but it is in rather light areas - OU etc. Meanwhile the building blocks are crumbling. Scandinavia? You don't mention it.

2. Yes, quite. My father is 81. He has never had a bank account. He saw bankers as crooks. My mother opened her first bank account in her 70s. Weird but true. They did join a building society much earlier. They argued over insurance. He was against but then fortunately for my mother his brother became an insurance man and things changed. Overall, they were right though.

3. I do remember Grunwick. A distant family member managed the SOGAT care home. Very nice it was too and I don't resent that aspect at all. I think you outline the problem with the pyramidal union structure and the associated Government constraints - secondary picketing etc. I see in an ideal world flatter accounting lines, a network, fewer 'armies', many more units, fewer lines between jobs and communities. It would be voted in and wider than the unions themselves which in places would be components.

4. Yes agree entirely. When I said nationalised industries etc "suggested anything but a top down approach" what I meant was that top down is not how you would naturally expect them to be structured rather than how they actually were.

[mangerton]

Anyone remember "In Place of Strife"? Barbara Castle's attempt to redefine industrial relations. If I remember correctly it was at the time Harold Wilson was PM, but I can't now remember the details, though I do remember she became a figure of malignment in the trade union movement because of it.

Oh yes, I remember it well. And - not necessarily in chronological order - The Pay Pause. Phases 1, 2 and 3. The Industrial Relations Act. TULRA. The Employment Protection Act. Beer and sandwiches at Number Ten. Smoked filled rooms. "Firm but Fair". Rolling blackouts. The three day week, and having to work in an office by candlelight and without heating.

All forerunners of "We're all in it together."

[Serial_Apologist]

Much as my last (probably) not very good response but I don't quite go along with:

socialism isn't handed down courtesy benevolent governments while the bosses look away; its a question of seizing control

I fully accept that is how things look today. But - I used to work my head around PR a lot. Post the AV debacle I think a lot more about the concept of political parties. I really can't see overwhelming barriers to parties with very different ideas being created and elected other than those the public place themselves. In fact, SNP shows that is the case.

So I think you could vote something like that into being rather than having to seize it. There are big obstacles but it isn't impossible with the will. I love a lot of socialism's historical components but I am not absolutely convinced that it even requires, or equates to, full red blooded socialism. I don't self-define as a socialist. I'm a socialist leaning social democrat with strong environmental values and something of a balance between social liberalism and old-style conservatism. It is rampant economic liberalism I hate. I think most people are politically an amalgam and many non-socialists would choose to have a far greater say.

Socialism, liberalism, conservatism, these concepts or constructs (horrible word) "move on". Marxism was weak on environmentalism, even though it understood wealth inhered in transmogrified raw materials. I'm with you on sentiments. Lenin isn't someone I would particularly have liked, but on culture he said one thing I agree with. Machine-made music, constructivism in the visual arts, Eisenstein etc: the early revolutionary period was one of artistic ferment in Russia. Groups were formed which said all bourgeois forms of art (opera, symphony halls etc) should be smashed, and new art forms emerge from the working class and peasantry. Others on the other hand said art shoud be revolutionary and experimental, reflective of expanding new tchnology replacing hand labour and the withering away of outdated thinking and consciousness. Stalin's seizure of power eventually meant return to nationalism and the national art when Russia had been at it pre-Soviet zenith, the time of Pushkin and Tchaikovsky, because Stalin had no culture other than his peasant past. That was how he read Lenin's view that the new art should take off from the highest point reached by bourgeois art. Read (red) across - bourgeois art = the civilised values of politeness and consideration born of privilege and servants that all should have access to/be free through greater leisure time to cultivate. Dreams manifest the power of imagination, multiplied by a factor of people operating to common objectives, as management "theorists" have (of course) come to realise - time out needed for its realisation.

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh yes, I remember it well. And - not necessarily in chronological order - The Pay Pause. Phases 1, 2 and 3. The Industrial Relations Act. TULRA. The Employment Protection Act. Beer and sandwiches at Number Ten. Smoked filled rooms. "Firm but Fair". Rolling blackouts. The three day week, and having to work in an office by candlelight and without heating.

All forerunners of "We're all in it together."

Ah yes, thanks for those reminders, Mangerton. Details I'm still hazy on though.

[Serial_Apologist]

Blimey serial_apologist. I must have my fish and chips soon.

1. So you do agree it could have been different here, irrespective of demographics? Brandt was very forward-looking. One of the best. We too had American assistance, of course. I feel that the period 1951-1957 looks industrially unimaginative and could have done with Government initiatives. There is a solid appearance c.1960 but nothing much for the future - housing, some yes, but no structural reform that might have accompanied more industrial effort - and then in the mid-1960s there is some wonderful innovation but it is in rather light areas - OU etc. Meanwhile the building blocks are crumbling. Scandinavia? You don't mention it.

The Tories won in 1951 largely because they promised more council and other house building than Labour - and then kept on promising more! On the mixed economy there was cross-party consensus until Keith Joseph and Margaret T. Management inefficiency was overlooked or ceded to (think of textiles). One of Thatcher's most notorious one-liners was "management must be allowed to manage". Germany was already advantaged due to the reasons already given: more productive and therefore more profitable industry; minimal arms spending; no nukes! It's always struck me as ironic that countries like the Scandinavian ones learned from our welfare state and its mistakes were improved upon. I only didn't mention them because (West) Germany assumed the lead in terms of industrialisation post WW2.

[ahinton]

Thanks. I assume that was before everything else was crooked.

Frankly, I doubt it, but it may well have been before so many people actually realised that it was!

[ahinton]

There were some on the far-left (the very far-left) who argued that the return of a Tory government would be a good thing, since it would re-inject some militancy back into a trade union rank-and-file that had been confused into seeing a Labour government as being on its side. But I don't suppose that's what your district organiser was thinking of.

No, I didn't at all get the impression that it was!